FRENCH  AND  AMERICAN  REPUBLICAN 
ISSUES  IN  PUBLIC  EDUCATION  HAR- 
MONIZED BY  GUIZOT. 


Elements  of  Education  common  to  all  Ages  and  Nations . — Grecian  and 
Roman  Republican  ideas  of  education,  that  rule  European  and  Amer- 
lca"  education  to-day,  have,  in  principle,  ruled  even  India,  China, 
a?»*  u“amme<^an  ^s*a  “fr°m  time  immemorial.”  In  the  language 
of  Menu,  author  of  the  last  of  the  Vedas  of  India,  education  is  the  de- 
veloping of  the  mind  to  apprehend  “sarva,”  the  whole,  or  every  rela- 
tion  of  man  to  things  and  beings.  In  the  Hebrew  of  Moses  it  is  indi- 
cated by  “ hanan,  ’ to  whet,  or  sharpen  the  intellectual  powers  for 
successful  meeting  all  the  issues  of  existence  ; while  in  Solomon,  the  term 
“hamak,  to  build,  supplements  primary  training  enjoined  in  Moses’ 
law  as  the  work  of  the  Levites,  by  that  perfected  comprehension  which 
has  .made,  Hebrew  training  in  all  ages  so  effective.  The  Greek  term 
paideia,  or  child-training,  originally  applied  to  the  simplest  primary 
instruction,  its  officer  being,  as  Herodotus  states  (viii.  75),  the  Athenian 
servant  who  led  the  boy  to  school,  came  in  its  verbal  root  to  indicate, 
as  in  Vlatos  Republic,  the  most  perfected  culture  in  advancing  science 
and  art.  The  Roman  designation  “educatio,”  drawing  out  or  develop- 
in£’  i.n  * er<:nce  indicating  the  parental  office  of  nurturing  alike  the  mind 
and  body  of  the  growing  child,  came  in  the  culmination  of  the  Roman, 
as  01  the  Grecian  Republic,  as  Cicero  indicates,  to  characterize  the  man 
of  complete  culture  ; as  seen  in  his  designation  : “ Institutus  liberaliter 
educatione  doctrinaque,  liberally  cultured  by  education  and  instruc- 
tion.  Vet  more;  not  only  the  principle  but  the  methods  of  education 
have  been  and  now  are  common  in  all  nations.  The  visitor  to  any  one 
01  the  thousand  or  more  of  Muhammedan  common  schools  at  Constan- 
tinople nnds  the  pupils  trained  to  read,  that  they  may  imbibe  the  knowl- 
edge stored  up  by  men  of  experience  in  their  own  and  other  ages;  to 
write,  that  they  may  be  able  to  express  their  own  wish  and  thought  to 
others  not  within  the  range  of  the  voice ; while  the  main  attainment  is 
e committing  to  memory  of  the  Koran,  which  is  a compendium  of  the 
History,  the  moral  precepts,  and  the  religious  doctrines  which  are  to  be 
llJe’riulde  V?  future  life.  Precisely  like  to  this  are  the  primary  schools 
ot  Ghina,  which  reach  every  boy  who  gives  indication  of  mental  powers 
susceptible  of  high  culture.  It  is  according  to  this  universal  law  that 
Hebrew  education  has  taken  its  distinctive  character.  It  is  significant 
as  to  the  perfect  embodiment  of  truth  unalloyed  that  pervades  the  spirit 
and  gives  form  to  the  precepts,  as  distinct  from  the  doctrines  drawn  from 
the  letter  of  the  New  Testament,  that  no  people  or  nation  has  yet  been 
met  to  whom  its  teachings  have  not  appeared  to  be  “ common  law.” 

4.u  Education  as  distinct  from  Education  adapted  to  capacity . — Here 
the  history  of  mankind  indicates  the  most  important  fact  relating  to 
practical  educational  systems.  The  student  of  the  Institutes  of  Menu, 
*he,first  of  the  Twelve  Books  (sect.  31)  this  fundamental  rule, 
opposed  to  law:  “ He  (the  Creator)  caused  the  Brahmin,  the  Cshatriya, 
the  Vaisya,  the  Sudra  (so  named  from  scripture,  protection,  wealth, 
and  labor),  to  proceed  from  his  mouth,  his  arm,  his  thigh  and  his  foot.’ 


Hence  education,  or  comprehensive  culture/treated  in  the  second  book, 
based  in  every  respect  on  the  Vedas,  is  only  for  the  first  class,  the  Brah- 
mins ; while,  as  succeeding  books  indicate,  only  “ military  tactics  ” be- 
longs to  the  training  of  the  second  class,  “ industrial  economy  ” to  the 
third,  and  no  training  at  all  to  toilers  with  the  hand  and  foot.  On 
the  other  hand,  among  the  Chinese,  though  ruled  by  one  wing  of  the 
Northern  Tartar  race,  as  Turkey  is  ruled  by  another  under  military 
despotism,  education  properly  is  the  heritage  of  all  the  people;  since 
any  boy  who  shows  capacity  is  by  public  provision  made  eligible  to 
enter  upon  and  pursue  the  studies  of  each  succeeding  grade,  until  he 
attains  the  highest,  and  is  subject  for  appointment  to  the  highest  civil 
as  distinct  from  political  office  of  the  Empire.  Coming  to  the  Grecian 
system,  the  ideal  Republic  of  Plato  becomes  palpable  in  its  fanciful 
provisions ; founded  on  the  theoretic  necessity  that  in  order  to  the 
highest  development  there  be  just  such  a proportion  of  teachers,  law- 
makers and  judges,  of  merchants  and  artisans,  and  of  field  and  house 
laborers,  country  and  city  menials ; and  hence  that  there  must  be  a class 
most  highly  cultured  who  should  by  arbitrary  supervision  maintain 
this  proportion.  It  was  a necessary  corollary  from  this  theorem  that  in 
order  to  the  equal  division  of  property  and  its  distribution  as  in  army- 
messes,  there  should  be  community  of  wives  and  children  as  of  property. 
Yet  more,  a suggestion  from  which  humanity  would  shrink  unless  it 
were  stated,  this  system  provided  that  by  “ infanticide  ” the  children  in- 
capable of  entering  either  of  these  classes  should  like  lower  animals  be 
removed  as  a burden  to  community.  Had  not  this  very  idea  been 
reconceived  in  the  French  revolution,  its  character,  as  its  suggestion, 
would  have  doubtless  been  forgotten.  For,  the  overshadowing  of 
Aristotle’s  comprehensive  analysis  of  all  human  relations  to  things  and 
beings  became  so  perfect  in  its  systematizing  of  the  sciences  and  arts, 
whence  he  deduced  his  philosophic  applications  to  the  family,  the  city, 
the  State,  and  to  international  and  religious  relations,  that  it  has  ruled, 
after  occasional  experiments  of  partial  theories,  all  advanced  nations. 
The  systems  of  primary,  secondary,  and  university  education  founded 
on  this  balanced  philosophy  is  specially  distinguished  by  its  discrimi- 
nation between  material  “ equality  ” and  moral  “ equity.”  In  the  same 
family,  one  son,  perhaps  a younger,  develops  a mental  capacity  which 
makes  him  fitted  to  be  the  head  of  a business  in  which  his  brothers 
may  be  subordinates ; as  in  the  Webster  family,  the  elder  fitted  to 
manage  the  farm,  the  younger  to  rule  a Senate.  The  patriarchal  sys- 
tem, early  illustrated  in  the  families  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob, 
preserved  to  this  day  alike  by  the  native  Chinese  of  eastern  Asia  and 
the  Christian  communities  of  western  Asia,  guards  this  law  of  nature 
and  allows  its  rule.  That  law,  a century  before  Plato  and  Aristotle 
wrote,  was  already  ruling  in  the  Roman  Republic;  whose  leaders  had 
borrowed  its  principal  Applications  from  the  code  of  Solon,  the  Athe- 
nian Republican  legislator.  It  was  at  the  foundation  of  Roman  educa- 
tional institutions,  which  have  ruled  all  European  educational  institu- 
tions under  Christian  supervision  ; whose  excess  of  development  is  prob- 
ably to-day  appearing  in  the  limitless  technical,  special,  and  even  in- 
dustrial departments  now  classified  as  parts  of  university  education. 
The  rule  of  this  general  principle  is  seen  in  the  remark  of  Tacitus,  to 
have  lived  and  ruled  under  the  most  rigid  Imperial  sway  : “ Dominum 
et  servum  nullis  educationis  deliciis  dignoseas  ”;  master  and  servant, 
by  no  refinements  of  education  mayest  thou  detect. 

Mediceval  Approximation  to  Modern  Systems  of  Education. — The 
master- analyzer  of  this  age  was  Guizot.  Since  he  with  discrimination 
makes  France  the  centre  illustrating  the  progress  of  civilization,  and 
since  civilization  progresses  with  the  general  culture  that  is  developed 
by  common  education,  the  briefest  glance  only  at  other  countries  is 


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required.  The  Roman  conquest  scarcely  penetrated  beyond  the  Rhine  ; 
certainly  not  into  the  Germany  graphically  pictured  by  Tacitus.  In 
Britain,  as  the  “ Agricola  ” of  Tacitus  indicates,  the  moulding  influence 
became  permanent ; and  in  the  Western  Isles,  as  Iona,  Roman  educa- 
tion sowed  seeds  of  truest  culture.  In  Spain,  while  the  Goths  ruled 
the  North,  in  the  South  the  power  of  common  culture  to  guard  the 
Republic  of  Letters  was  triumphant.  As  Mohammed  himself  had  as  his 
teachers,  a cultured  Hebrew  and  a true  Christian  Greek,  so  the  first 
two  visions  of  his  Koran  prepared  the  way  for  the  perpetuation,  and 
in  six  Centuries  later  the  culmination,  of  an  education  really  Grecian 
and  Roman  in  the  Colleges  of  Bagdad  on  the  Euphrates,  and  of  Cor- 
dova in  Spain.  Europe  can  never  forget,  that  for  the  sciences  of  Alge- 
bra and  Chemistry,  her  people  are  indebted  to  the  Arab  race  whose 
names  they  bear.  The  meeting  of  Averrhoes,  Maimonides,  and  Aquinas, 
as  associate  learners  and  teachers,  gives  a lesson  for  our  times. 

Stages  of  Educational  Progress  in  France . — While  Guizot’s  History 
of  Civilization  makes  France  the  true  centre  of  dawning  progress, 
Charlemagne’s  educational  work  links  it  to  Germany,  and  the  conquest 
of  William  the  Norman  to  England.  It  was  just  at  the  era  of  this 
second  event  that  the  second  stage  in  the  advance  of  French  educa- 
tional systems  arose.  Charlemagne’s  wise  and  personally  supervised 
system,  reaching  the  people  at  large  with  primary  education,  prepared 
the  way  for  the  select  aspiring  minds.  This  developing  of  its  demand 
made  the  University  a necessity  and  gave  it  a patronage.  In  the  year 
1:252,  less  than  two  centuries  after  the  Norman  occupation  of  England, 
and  when  the  impulse  given  to  thought  during  the  Crusades  had  cul- 
minated in  the  co-operation  of  Hebrew,  Christian,  and  Muhammedan 
scholarship  in  the  south  of  Spain,  Robert  de  Sorbon,  then  fifty  years 
of  age,  and  specially  in  the  confidence  of  Louis  IX.,  originated  that 
Institution  called  after  him  by  the  feminine  title  “ The  Sorbonne.” 
Robert’s  idea  was  that  which  from  his  day  has  ruled  in  the  Colleges  of 
•Europe  and  of  America.  As  the  instructors  who  reached  the  people 
were  those  who  came  up  from  their  ranks,  as  those  instructors  like  the 
Levites  in  the  Hebrew  State  were  ecclesiastics,  as  the  higher  instruc- 
tion of  the  College  was  excluded  from  the  aspirations  of  those  who 
could  not  pay  the  required  fees,  Charlemagne’s  provision  of  free  tuition 
to  the  people  in  primary  instruction  was  extended  to  College  training. 
That  Institution,  with  its  Lecture  System  supplemented  by  catechet- 
ical drawing  out  of  the  pupil,  and  yet  more  by  questions  of  the  pupil 
drawing  out  the  teacher,  not  only  attracted,  but  developed  the  ablest 
teachers  of  France  ; Guizot  himself  being  the  culminating  example. 
Down  to  the  Revolution  under  Louis  XVI.,  “ The  Sorbonne  ” was  -the 
saving  guardian  in  French  education  for  the  people  ; their  true  teach- 
ers and  statesmen  being  there  trained. 

Reform  in  Higher  French  Education  under  Louis  XIV.,  by  Rot  tin. — 
Early  under  Louis  XIV.  the  conflict  of  philosophic  theories,  material 
and  spiritual,  and  their  harmony  in  the  actual  and  practical  union  of 
both  revived.  This  was  illustrated  in  India  when  the  practical,  be- 
cause balanced  analysis  and  reasoning  of  Kapila  and  Gotama,  harmo- 
* nized  the  opposing  materialistic  and  mystic  theories  of  the  early  Vedic 

masters.  It  appeared  more  fully,  and  for  all  time,  when  elaborated  by 
Aristotle  amid  the  partial  theories  of  Democritus  and  Pythagoras,  each 
reduced  to  absurdity  in  the  keen  discussions  of  Socrates,  reported  by 
i the  theoretic  Plato  and  practical  Xenophon  ; all  of  which,  Indian  and 

Grecian,  went  into  the  crucible  and  took  solid  form  in  the  analysis 
of  Aristotle.  These  theories,  severally  manifest  in  the  two  Hebrew 
apostles  of  Jesus,  John  and  James,  but  harmonized  in  Paul  the  later 
and  balanced  apostle  to  the  Greeks,  culminating  in  the  discussions  of 
Augustine  and  Pelagius  in  the  fifth  century  of  Christian  history,  awoke 


4 


to  intensest  energy  in  the  age  when  Montesquieu,  in  the  masterly  anal- 
ysis of  his  “ Esprit  des  Lois,”  was  elaborating  those  principles  which 
became  the  study  of  the  founders  of  the  American  Republic.  The 
successive  lives  of  four  men  must  be  brought  into  rapid  review  that  the 
balanced  result,  mighty  in  its  influence  and  in  its  growing  power  over 
three  or  four  generations,  may  be  appreciated  in  the  systems  of  edu- 
cation that  have  ruled  the  American  Republic  from  its  origin,  and  now 
rule  that  of  France. 

In  1630,  Jansen,  born  in  Holland  in  1585,  educated  at  Utrecht,  be- 
came eminent  as  a Professor  of  Biblical  Theology.  Partaking  the  spirit 
of  Augustine  just  after  his  early  conversion,  and  before  his  Old  Age 
Confessions,  and  ruled  by  the  spirit  of  controversy,  Jansen  aroused  at 
the  Sorbonne  bitter  antagonisms  ; which,  as  always,  soon  became  per- 
sonal in  the  monastic  brotherhoods  of  the  Gallic  Church.  When  op- 
posed, Jansen,  the  leader  in  controversy,  sought  the  alliance,  always 
injurious  to  truth,  of  the  Spanish  monarchs  then  specially  favorable 
from  policy  to  Holland  interests.  The  conflict  of  opinions,  with  its 
demoralizing  influence  on  the  character  of  education  ruled  from  the 
Sorbonne,  exerted  its  disorganizing  influence  for  a century  and  a quar- 
ter ; till  subdued  and  harmonized  to  a great  extent  in  the  ripe  old  age 
of  Rollin. 

About  twenty  years  after  Jansen’s  first  agitation  at  the  Sorbonne,  his 
treatise,  “ De  Interioris  Hominis  Reformatione,”  on  the  Reformation 
of  the  Inner  Man,  attracted  the  attention  of  Pascal,  born  1623,  and 
then  less  than  thirty  years  of  age.  In  early  boyhood  Pascal  was  in- 
spired with  the  love  of  the  higher  mathematics ; and  in  youth  he  wrote 
a treatise  on  the  “ Conic  Sections,”  which  won  the  praise  of  Descartes. 
Soon  after,  Torricelli’s  studies  in  Physics,  under  Galileo,  drew  his  at- 
tention to  the  laws  of  the  pressure  of  fluids,  which  led  to  the  invention 
of  the  barometer ; and  under  the  united  influence  of  scientific  and  re- 
ligious conviction,  Pascal  wrote  a treatise  on  the  Cycloid,  which  is  a 
masterpiece  alongside  the  work  of  Newton,  his  contemporary ; and  he 
added  a “ Calculus  of  Probabilities,”  yet  more  wonderful  in  its  analysis. 
Drawn  into  the  controversy  of  Jansen’s  followers,  Pascal’s  “ Provincial 
Letters  ” partook  of  the  faults  of  Augustine’s  extreme  reasonings,  while 
his  “ Pensees,”  or  “ Thoughts  on  Religion,”  has  proved  to  all  minds  like 
the  “ Confessions  of  Augustine  in  Old  Age  like  also  to  “The  Defence 
of  Socrates,”  when,  at  seventy,  he  was  arraigned  before  the  Athenian 
Senate,  and  his  “ last  discourse  ” in  the  Phaedo.  As  Cicero  said  he  could 
never  restrain  his  tears  while  reading  Socrates’  logical  reasonings  as  to 
the  Divine  Being  and  future  life,  subdued  by  the  tender  spirit  which 
brought  him  nigh  to  the  condemned  Grecian  sage,  so  amid  the  excite- 
ment of  the  French  Revolution,  men  like  Rousseau  and  many  a liberal 
religionist  of  our  day  have  expressed  admiration  of,  and  have  found 
solace  in  the  perusal  of  “ Pascal’s  Thoughts.” 

Next  in  order,  and  special  remoulder  in  French  education,  came  Rol- 
lin ; whose  works,  admired  and  copied  as  models  in  England,  have  done 
more  than  those  of  any  French  author  to  make  American  education 
become  what  a Republican  people  need  and  seek.  Born  in  1663  at 
Paris,  trained  at  the  Sorbonne,  Professor  there  from  1694  to  1712, 
charged  with  Jansenism,  which  had  become  linked  to  Calvinism,  and 
displaced  for  a time,  his  balanced  judgment,  his  harmonizing  spirit,  and 
the  realized  fact  that  no  one  like  Rollin  could  secure  alike  the  con- 
fidence of  parents,  of  students,  and  of  court  counsellors,  led  Louis  XIV. 
to  recall  him  in  1720,  and  make  him  Director  of  Public  Instruction. 
Added  to  the  impulse  given  to  science  by  men  like  Descartes  and 
Pascal,  it  was  Rollins  mission  to  call  back  pure  and  perfected  studies  in 
Belles-Lettres  and  the  Greek  as  well  as  Latin  classics.  Here  his 
chastened  taste,  his  high-toned  moral  instincts,  his  genuine  piety, 


s 


brought  about  reforms  which  seemed  impossible  in  the  presence  of  the 
voluptuous  court  of  Louis.  But  the  Sorbonne,  under  Rollin,  with  all 
the  power  of  the  later  University,  became  a green-Eden  retreat,  no- 
ticed by  visitors  of  the  age,  who  have  left  their  records  preserved  amid 
the  Sodom-plain  around,  like  the  refuge  saved  for  Lot  at  Zoar.  Rollin 
was  remarkable  for  testing  his  work  by  practical  demonstration  before 
he  published  his  results.  His  “Traitedes  Etudes,"  or  “Treatises  on 
Studies,"  and  his  “Ancient  History,"  were  written  between  the  ages  of 
sixty  and  seventy-five  years;  his  death  occurring  in  1741,  when  he  was 
eighty.  The  “ Treatise  on  Literary  Studies  " is  still  a model ; a single 
illustration  attesting.  Rollin  reached  fundamental  principles.  He 
opposed  the  system  of  committing  and  reciting  Latin  selections,  especi- 
ally the  acting  of  scenes  in  Terence.  First,  quoting  Cicero  and  Ouinc- 
tilian,  that  the  style  of  speaking  belonging  to  the  actor  on  the  stage  is 
so  different  from  that  of  the  orator  that  it  has  to  be  unlearned  in  order 
to  success  in  reaching  men  practically  in  public  life,  Rollin  thus 
showed  that  the  time  was  wasted  and  spent  in  such  training.  Second, 
he  argued  that  it  weakened  the  power  of  the  mind  to  grasp  the  thought 
and  assimilate  both  the  reasoning  and  the  culture  which  was  the  chief 
aim  of  classic  study;  the  long  required  preparation  for  dramatic  exhi- 
bitions, diverting  from  connected  and  analytic  mastery  of  the  classics. 
Third,  and  most  earnestly,  he  objected  to  the  artificial  semblance  of 
youthful  affection  ; young  men  dressing  in  female  costume,  while  the 
relations  of  domestic  union  were  made  so  sensual  that  insincerity  and 
grossness  came  to  characterize  and  rule  the  pure  spirit  of  young  men 
brought  from  the  purity  of  rural  homes,  and  seduced  by  Court  licen- 
tiousness. Rollin’s  “ Ancient  History  ” was  written  from  the  very  oppo- 
site point  of  view  of  Gibbon,  the  latter  being  compiled  about  half  a 
century  later,  between  the  years  1783-93,  at  Lausanne,  Switzerland. 
Rollin’s  work  was  a true  and  faithful  study  for  youth  ; not  to  entice  to 
“ the  lusts  of  the  flesh,  the  lust  of  the  eyes,  and  the  pride  of  life,"  against 
which  Tacitus  as  a scathing  critic,  and  John  as  a loving  father,  in  the 
same  age,  raised  the  voice  of  remonstrance ; but  to  bring  out,  as  did 
Xenophon,  alike  in  his  “ Cyropedia  ” and  his  “ Memorabilia,”  the  ngble 
virtues  which  ever  have  animated  aspiring  youth ; aspirations  too  oft 
forgotten,  as  Aristotle  noted  in  his  pupil  Alexander,  when  men  of 
genius  come  to  power.  While  Rollin  still  lived  these  works  of  his 
old  age  became  text-books  even  in  England.  The  admiration  they 
awakened  arose  under  George  II.,  only  a few  years  after  the  British 
Constitution  had  taken  its  present  stable  provisions,  embodying  the 
principles  on  which,  under  George  III.,  Burke,  in  1774  and  ’75,  defended 
the  resistance  of  the  American  Colonies,  and  which  were  embodied  by 
Jefferson  in  the  argument  of  the  American  Declaration,  adopted  July 
4,  1776.  The  Archbishop  of  Rochester  wrote  these  appreciative  eulogi- 
ums  to  Rollin  in  Latin,  under  date  6°  Kal.,  Jan.,  1731  : “The  services 
rendered  (numera)  in  the  books  issued  by  thee  in  late  years  (nuperis  a 
te  annis)  seem  to  me  of  rare  worth,  and  specially  to  your  honor.  Though 
I had  devoted  much  time  and  care  in  cultivating  such  studies,  I con- 
fess that  you  are  the  best  of  masters  (optimum  magistrum).  When  I 
read  and  reread  (legam  et  relegam)  your  volumes,  I am  instructed  by 
you  not  only  in  things  of  which  I was  before  entirely  ignorant,  but  also 
in  those  in  which  I fancied  myself  to  have  been  before  learned.  You 
have,  therefore,  too  modest  an  opinion  of  your  work  v/hen  you  declare 

it* composed  solely  for  the  instruction  of  youth In  your  frequent 

accord  with  Xenophon  you  so  write  that,  in  my  judgment,  had  Xeno- 
phon known  French  (si  Gallice  scisset  Xenophon),  he  yrould  have  used 
no  other  words  in  his  argument  than  you  have  selected.” 

The  view  of  Rollin’s  influence  on  French  education  is  incomplete 
without  mention  of  its  inspiring  influence  on  Montesquieu,  who  gave 


6 


modern  shape  to  now  ruling  Constitutional  Republican  Government. 
Born  in  1689,  drinking  in  the  sprit  of  Rollin,  whom  he  quotes,  devoting 
himself  to  politics,  withdrawing,  in  1726,  from  his  seat  in  Parliament 
that  he  might  prepare  himself  for  more  effectual  influence,  he  spent 
some  years  in  Italy,  Germany,  and  England.  In  1734,  while  the  Ency- 
clopaedists were  perverting  history,  misleading  the  people,  and  going  to 
extremes,  he  issued  his  “ Causes  of  the  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Ro- 
mans of  which  Gibbon’s  work,  fifty  years  later,  was  at  once  an  expan- 
sion and  a perversion.  In  1748,  after  twenty  years  of  exhaustive  prepa- 
ration, he  issued  that  master-work,  “ Esprit  des  Lois,”  Spirit  of  Laws, 
which  has  been  to  European  and  American  statesmen  what  Aristotle’s 
Ethics,  Politics,  and  Economics  had  proved  for  ages  preceding. 
He  goes  back  at  once  to  Aristotle’s  idea  that  the  family  is  the 
natural  guide  to  organized  society ; that  the  patriarchal,  or  a selected 
father,  seen  in  all  early  Asiatic  and  European  history,  is  the  first  and 
true  ideal ; that  kingly  rule  is  only  needed  in  war,  which  is  the  excep- 
tional state  of  society ; that  aristocracy  is  the  rule  of  the  men  best  in 
capacity,  perverted  only  when  it  becomes  plutocracy  or  a rule  of  the 
wealthy,  or  timocracy , a rule  of  hereditary  title.  Democracy  is  cor- 
rupted only  when  it  leaves  the  administration  of  law  and  government 
to  the  momentary  impulse  of  the  populace,  swayed  too  often  by  design- 
ing demagogues,  which  Aristotle  personally  studied  while  the  Grecian 
States  were,  by  its  unbridled  control,  brought  under  the  Imperial  rule 
of  Philip  of  Macedon.  Since  each  of  these  forms  of  government  are 
those  to  which  communities  subject  themselves  for  their  own  interests, 
the  “ aristocracy  ” or  rule  of  men  eminent  for  leadership  in  promoting 
the  “ Common-wealth  ” (Latin,  “ Res-publica,”  in  Greek,  “ ta  koina 
tes  Politeias,”)  and  in  securing  its  protection  either  by  moral  or  military 
control, — the  best  government  must  embody  these  three  ideas  : the 
power  of  selection  from  the  best  men,  or  “ aristocracy,”  must  be  the 
first  element;  second,  the  unlimited  authority  of  the  “ military  ruler” 
must  be  granted  during  the  limited  period  of  his  selection  ; third,  the 
people  at  large,  the  “democracy,”  must  have  a voice  in  the  selection, 
since  then,  during  his  limited  rule,  the  very  men  who  selected  him  are 
committed  to  fidelity  in  his  support. 

This  fundamental  idea,  interwoven  into  all  its  applications,  should 
have  ruled  France.  For,  the  principles  of  Aristotle  rested  on  eternal 
laws  which,  when  he  wrote,  he  had  seen  tested  in  Athens  under  Solon 
and  at  Rome  under  the  Republic.  Of  those  laws,  tested  four  centuries 
and  more,  Cicero  thus  wrote,  in  his  “ Laws  ” (De  Legibus,  II.  iv.)  : 
“ The  impulse  which  directs  to  right  conduct  and  deters  from  crime  is 
not  only  older  than  the  annals  of  nations  and  of  cities,  but  coeval  with 
that  Divine  Being  who  oversees  and  rules  both  heaven  and  earth. 
Tarquin  none  the  less  violated  that  eternal  law,  because  in  his  reign 
there  was  no  written  law  against  such  violence  ; for  the  principle  that 
impels  us  to  right  action  and  warns  us  against  guilt,  springs  out  of  the 
nature  of  things.  It  did  not  begin  to  be  law  when  it  was  written  ; but 
when  its  principle  had  its  first  being  ; and  that  was  coeval  with  the 
Divine  Mind  itself.”  Again  he  says  : “ There  is  indeed  one  true  and 
original  law,  conformable  to  reason  and  to  nature,  diffused  over  all, 
invariable,  eternal,  which  calls  to  the  fulfillment  of  duty,  and  to  the 
abstaining  from  injustice  ; and  which  calls  with  a voice  that  is  irresist- 
ible in  authority  wherever  it  is  heard.  The  law  cannot  be  abolished, 
nor  restricted,  nor  affected  in  any  of  its  sanctions  by  any  law  of  men. 
A whole  Senate,  a whole  people,  cannot  dispense  one  from  its  para- 
mount obligation.  It  requires  no  commentator  to  render  it  distinctly 
intelligible  ; nor  is  it  different  at  Rome  and  at  Athens,  nor  at  the  pres- 
ent and  in  future  ages  ; but  in  all  times  and  in  all  nations  it  is  and  has 
been  and  will  be,  one  and  everlasting ; one  as  that  God,  its  great  author 


7 


and  promulgator,  who  is  the  common  sovereign  of  mankind,  is  Himself 
one.  No  one  can  disobey  it  without  flying,  as  it  were,  from  his  own 
bosom,  and  denying  his  own  nature  ; and  in  this  very  act  he  will  inflict 
on  himself  the  severest  of  retributions,  even  though  he  escape  what  is 
commonly  called  punishment.” 

That  “ eternal  law  ” had  ruled  England  before  Montesquieu  wrote  ; 
for  Whewell,  author  of  the  “ History  of  the  Inductive  Sciences,”  in  his 
“ Morality  and  Polity,”  issued  in  i860,  traced  back  their  recognition  to 
the  Act  of  Parliament  deposing  James  II.  That  law  did  rule  from  the 
first  the  American  fathers  ; as  Nathaniel  Chipman,  LL.D.,  in  a volume 
issued  at  Burlington,  Vt.,  in  1833,  going  back  to  Aristotle,  has  shown. 

So,  too,  England  should  be  ruled  now  by  the  counsels  of  men  who 
thought  with  Montesquieu,  borrowing  his  ideas,  seeking  their  tests 
where  he  did  in  such  works  as  Plutarch’s  Lives,  and  linking  his  studies 
for  mature  men  with  those  made  by  Rollin  and  embodied  in  his  An- 
cient History  for  Youth.  So,  too,  those  counsels  of  the  American  fa- 
thers founded  on  eternal  laws  should  have  ruled — doubtless  we  must 
say  it — thirty  years  ago  in  our  Republic.  The  point  to  note  is;  that 
systems  of  education  then  lay  and  now  lie  at  the  foundation  of  public 
security. 

Guizot’s  Life  fitting  him  for  his  Survey. — Guizot  was  born  in  the  South 
of  France  in  1787.  His  father,  a Protestant  lawyer,  fell  a victim  to  the 
atheistic  anarchy  which  ruled  the  opening  revolution  in  1794.  Wit- 
nessing as  a youth  the  atrocities  wrought  by  all  the  factions  of  the  mis- 
named Republic,  he  commenced  the  practice  of  law  under  Napoleon  I. 
in  1805  ; publishing  masterly  papers  from  1809  on  public  affairs.  At 
Napoleon’s  fall  he  was  made  Secretary  of  the  Interior ; but  in  1820  re- 
tired and  devoted  himself  to  lectures  in  the  Sorbonne  and  contributions 
to  the  “ Revue  Francaise,”  which  culminated  in  his  “ History  of  Civil- 
ization in  Europe.”  On  the  fall  of  Charles  X.,  the  last  of  the  Bour- 
bons, in  1830,  Guizot,  under  Louis  Philippe,  the  elected  Constitutional 
monarch,  was  recognized  as  the  man  of  all  others  fitted  for  any  and 
successively  for  all  posts  of  influence.  Yielding  to  the  demand  he  be- 
came a member  of  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  till  1832  ; then  because 
the  training  of  the  new  generation  was  to  lay  the  foundation  of  future 
stability,  he  accepted  position  at  the  head  of  the  Bureau  of  Public 
Instruction  till  1836.  Having  completed  this  fundamental  home  mis- 
sion, he  accepted  the  post  of  Minister  to  England  for  a year.  Finally, 
as  Prime  Minister  till  the  restored  Republic  of  1848,  his  influence  was 
harmonizing  in  all  departments.  When  the  “plebiscite”  made  Louis 
Napoleon  Emperor,  his  private  influence  in  his  retirement' was  still 
moulding,  and  his  studies  and  published  writings  were  continued  till  his 
decease,  in  September,  1874,  at  the  age  of  eighty-seven  years.  It  was 
during  this  period  that  he  elaborated  in  eight  volumes  his  “ Memoirs 
of  my  own  Time  one  of  these  volumes  being  devoted  to  his  four 
years  as  head  of  the  Bureau  of  Public  Instruction.  Meanwhile,  too, 
he  edited  a French  edition  of  the  “ Life  and  Writings  of  Washing- 
ton introducing  it  by  an  Essay  on  the  Colonial  History,  the  rights  of 
the  Revolution,  and  the  character  of  Washington,  so  impartial,  so  bal- 
anced, so  free  from  both  English  and  American  prejudice,  that  its  in- 
troduction as  a text-book  with  his  History  of  Civilization  in  Europe,  is 
an  American  demand.  The  chaotic  condition  of  Public  Education  at 
his  entrance  on  this  office  of  fundamental  importance,  the  three  ele- 
ments of  difficulty  specially  harmonized,  and  their  American  parallels, 
are  the  points  for  closing  survey;  for  which  the  previous  paragraphs 
are  a necessary  preparation. 

French  Education  from  1790  to  1830,  as  traced  by  Guizot. — Ruled  for 
centuries  by  the  State-Church,  which  was  French  Catholic  substan- 
tially Roman  in  supervision,  the  Revolution  as  studied  by  Burke  and 


8 


by  the  American  fathers  in  the  first  amendment  to  the  United  States 
Constitution,  swept  like  a tornado  through  class-rooms  of  primary  and 
halls  of  higher  education.  The  “Constituent  Assembly,”  ruled  by 
Talleyrand,  adopted  measures  whose  foreshadowing  led  Burke  before- 
hand to  declare  in  the  British  Parliament : “ I see  propagated  prin- 
ciples which  will  not  leave  to  Religion  even  toleration,  and  will  make 
Virtue  itself  less  than  a name  which  principles  prompted  the  Amer- 
ican States,  as  one,  not  only  to  forbid  to  Congress  power  to  establish  a 
State-Church,  but  also  to  “ prohibit  the  free  exercise  of  religion.”  That 
first  Revolutionary  body,  whose  rule  for  a year  brought  in  a counter  rule, 
left  education  in  chaos.  The  second,  the  Legislative  Convention,  fastened 
on  the  first  term  of  the  triple  watchword,  “ Liberte,  Egalite,  Fraternite.’ 
This  Assembly  provided  that  any  and  every  teacher  be  left  to  his  own 
freedom  in  choice  and  conduct  of  studies.  But  this  idea  brought  in  a 
confusion  to  which  parents  could  not  be  expected  long  to  submit.  The 
third  stage,  inaugurated  by  the  National  Convention,  at  the  sugges- 
tion of  Daunou,  framed  a system  of  education  rigidly  ruled  by  the 
second  watchword.  “ Equality.”  They  established  a theoretic  system, 
to  rule  in  all  schools,  arranged  by  a Committee  who  soon  came  to  bear 
the  popular  term  of  reproach,  “ The  Academic  Church.”  It  permitted 
no  teacher  to  instruct  any  pupil  in  any  other  than  the  studies  pre- 
scribed, while  all  parents  were  required  to  send  their  children  to  the 
schools  thus  organized.  Under  Napoleon  the  present  University  system 
was  organized.  Guizot  compliments  highly  the  civil  administration, 
as  distinct  from  the  political  rule  and  military  ambition,  of  Napoleon. 
The  Code  Napoleon  even  Prussia  afterwards  adopted  as  the  best  embod- 
iment of  the  civil  law;  while  the  “ University”  of  France,  which  came 
to  rule  education,  was  wise  in  principle,  and  at  first  equitable  in  admin- 
istration. The  antagonisms  of  political  parties,  however,  monarchical 
and  republican,  and  yet  more  the  rivalries  of  Protestants  and  Catholics, 
with  the  revival  also  of  doctrinal  controversies  between  different  or- 
ders of  the  same  Church,  rendered  the  administration  of  the  University 
ineffective  for  the  country  and  inadequate  to  the  people’s  demand. 

Coming  into  power,  Guizot  saw  three  obstacles  to  harmony.  First, 
in  the  primary  department,  religious  instruction,  and  especially  Bible 
reading  and  interpretation,  required  adjustment.  This  he  sought  to 
meet  by  Scripture  selections,  presenting  Bible  history  and  precepts 
acceptable  to  all ; catechetical  teachings  which  abstained  from  doc- 
trinal controversies ; and  a form  of  prayer,  which  like  the  Lord’s 
prayer,  men  of  any  religious  faith  could  make  their  own.  Second,  in 
secondary  instruction,  a history  especially  of  their  own  country,  with 
all  its  recent  contradictory  counsels  and  enactments, — a demand  at 
once  imperative  and  yet  apparently  unattainable,  was  studied  ; and  by 
his  balanced  skill  it  was  attained.  Third,  for  the  higher  University 
study,  a history  of  philosophy,  ancient  and  modern,  true  to  history  and 
yet  satisfactory  to  differing  ecclesiastics,  to  opposing  politicians,  and 
above  all  to  sceptical  religionists,  was  the  last  and  most  difficult  work. 
This,  however,  was  accomplished  by  combining  French  and  English 
studies  of  the  Vedas  and  of  Brahmin ic  theories,  by  giving  due  place  to 
each  stage  and  phase  of  Grecian  philosophy,  by  stating  facts  at  every 
era  of  Christian  interpretation,  leaving  out  no  name  or  principle  how- 
ever controverted.  The  work  thus  prepared  was  for  the  University  of 
Paris  and  for  the  Colleges  of  France. 

When  these  several  provisions  were  completed,  a Manual  was  sent, 
Guizot  states,  to  no  less  than  39,300  “ masters,”  with  requests  for  com- 
ments or  suggestions.  Flattered  to  be  consulted  from  so  high  a source, 
the  Protestant  harmonizer  under  a Catholic  State-Church  received 
13,850  full  approvals;  while  acquiescence  was  almost  universal. 

American  Educational  Precedents  and  Present  Aims. — Guizot,  at  the 


9 


opening  of  his  suggestion  as  to  his  own  proposals,  commends  much  in 
the  English  system  and  more  in  the  system  “ des  Etats  Unis”;  which 
had  proved  truer  to  old  Grecian,  Roman,  and  French  precedents.  The 
American  leaders  had  studied  in  such  works  as  Plutarch’s  Lives  and 
Rollin’s  Ancient  History  the  systems  of  education  tested  to  be  adapted 
to  safety  by  Republican  institutions.  Jefferson,  who  was  a special 
student  of  authors  who  preceded  the  French  Revolution,  Franklin, 
who  had  imbibed  English  Liberal  and  Adams  Puritan  principles,  were 
of  one  mind  in  declaring  man’s  “ inalienable  rights  ” to  be  those  with 
which  he  is  “ endowed  by  his  Creator.”  Immediately  after  the  war’s 
close,  Jefferson  wrote  to  Adams  for  the  details  of  New  England  com- 
mon-school education,  that  he  might  introduce  them  into  Virginia  ; 
expressly  stating : “ No  one  can  object  to  the  teaching  of  the  words 
of  Jesus.”  The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  recognized  the  Chris- 
tian day  of  religious  rest ; giving  Sunday  exemption  from  public  service 
to  the  President ; and  so  directly  implying  that  it  is  the  universal 
American  law  that  all  departments  of  Government,  State  and  National, 
have  without  exception  taken  it.  The  “ common  law  ” is  declared 
ruling ; of  which  “ Christian  precept ,”  as  to  marriage,  profanity,  and 
other  moral  and  religious  relations  and  obligations,  to  be  carefully  dis- 
tinguished from  Christian  “ doctrinal  interpretations,”  has  ruled  in  every 
American  court,  as  lately  regarding  polygamy ; and  while,  too,  its  con- 
stitutional authority,  by  the  highest  law-authorities,  as  Kent,  has  been 
declared  to  be  in  force,  and  of  course  to  be  taught  in  American  col- 
leges. Assuredly  if  France  could  be  furnished  select  Scripture  read- 
ings and  a common  prayer  acceptable  to  all,  in  America,  where  select 
lessons  for  Sunday-schools,  International  as  well  as  National,  are  univers- 
ally acceptable,  and  where  members  of  all  Christian  communions  vie 
in  their  courtesies  of  inviting  and  accepting  attendance  alike  on  syna- 
gogues and  churches  not  of  their  own  faith — assuredly  this  demand  can 
be  met. 

As  to  the  second, a “History”  universally  acceptable,  this  simple  sugges- 
tion is  amply  sufficient  as  a guide.  The  acts  of  men  under  sudden  ex- 
citement, often  misrepresenting  public  sentiment,  misguiding  followers 
of  an  hour  by  partial  statement  of  facts  and  misjudgment  of  motives — 
these  acts  of  sudden  impulse  are  to  be  distinguished  from  the  calm, 
settled,  grounded,  and  ordinarily  ruling  convictions  of  the  people  at 
large.  The  two  exhibitions  are  as  unlike — the  experience  of  American 
cities  such  as  New  York,  Chicago,  San  Francisco,  and  New  Orleans 
alike  attesting — as  the  local  tornado  of  an  exceptional  hour  and  valley 
is  unlike  the  three  hundred  and  sixty-five  days  of  life-giving  and  fruit- 
maturing sunshine  and  genial  breezes  covering  a continent.  All  re- 
ligionists have  occasion  to  guard1  against  partial  statement  of  facts, 
illogical  conclusions,  and  unjust  judgments.  The  martyrdom  of  Soc- 
rates at  Athens,  of  Jesus  at  Jerusalem,  of  Bruno  at  Rome,  of  Servetus 
at  Geneva,  and  of  Burroughs  at  Salem,  arose  from  the  natural  convic- 
tion in  ages  and  locations  where  political  loyalty  and  religious  alliance 
were  at  once  inseparable  and  specially  intolerant  because  of  the  pre- 
vailing spirit  of  revolution  ; and  the  French  revolution  but  repeated  the 
fact  that  the  denial  of  all  religious  faith  puts  no  limit  to  intolerance 
and  bloodshed,  since  religious  faith  of  any  type  links  men  of  the  most 
opposite  convictions  by  a bond  that  puts  a limit,  because  it  has  a 
redeeming  aim,  to  its  inquisition.  Men  of  differing  interpretations  of  a 
mutually  accepted  and  advocated  constitution  have,  in  our  day  and 
land,  had  such  a demonstration  in  fratricidal  immolation  by  a few  rival 
political  priests  of  hecatombs  of  the  noblest  youth,  as  makes  real  the 
fable  of  the  Minotaur,  as  also  the  allied  maxim  that  war,  like  horse- 
racing, “ is  the  pastime  of  princes.”  The  recent  citation  of  the  fact, 
that  in  Wall  Street  during  the  War  for  the  Union,  the  “ bulls  and 


10 


bears  ” bet  on  slaughters  in  battles  as  on  game-cocks  in  the  pit,  attests 
that  even  money-greed,  “ sales  in  the  shambles,”  is  a stimulus  to  the 
immolation.  But , he  that  cites  these  acts  of  individuals  as  true  indices 
of  the  people’s  intelligence,  virtue,  and  self-respect,  will  soon  find  him- 
self, as  in  a noted  instance,  met  in  his  own  circle  by  a derisive  chal- 
lenge. For,  the  briefest  recalling  of  facts  as  to  the  four  wars  of  the 
American  States,  centering  in  the  social  question  of  personal  liberty 
and  equality,  and  in  the  political  issue  of  loyalty  to  existing  govern- 
ment, permits  clear  vision,  above  the  smoke  of  battle  and  the  cries  of 
martyred  brothers,  of  these  headlands  that  mark  the  rock  pillars  of 
fundamental  truth.  When  the  protracted  struggle  which  culminated 
in  the  war  for  American  Independence  was  opening  at  Boston,  and 
one  noble  African  servant  fell  in  defense  of  the  white  man’s  right,  this 
counterpart  soon  appeared.  The  Boston  Gazette  of  July  12,  1776,  which 
had  then  received  the  Declaration  adopted  July  4th,  at  Philadelphia, 
filled  two  pages  and  more  with  the  argument  in  proof  of  two  “ self- 
evident”  facts  : that  “all  men  are  created  equal,”  and  that  all  “govern- 
ments derive  their  just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed.”  This 
“ Declaration  ” is  immediately  followed  by  the  advertisement  of  a run- 
away slave,  whose  owner  describes  his  marks  and  offers  a reward  for 
his  recovery,  without  any  apparent  public  thought  that  this  son  of 
Adam  was  not  considered  an  “ equal  ” or  allowed  to  “ choose  ” his  gov- 
ernor. Yet  more,  the  “royalists”  were  for  a time  the  true  “loyalists.” 
Still  more,  in  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  in  1787,  Art.  I.,  sect,  ix., 
clause  1,  was  designed  to  meet  the  “ equitable  ” claims  of  two  extremes, 
Southern  and  Northern  ; the  one  needing  African  tillers  of  the  soil, 
and  the  other  having  the  ships  built  to  bring  them  from  the  African 
coast.  Again,  in  the  second  war,  that  for  American  “ equality  ” among 
the  nations,  when  the  industrial  and  commercial  interests  of  the  former 
New  England  Union  were  specially  affected,  and  at  Hartford,  in  De- 
cember, 1814,  the  restoration  of  that  Union  was  seriously  considered,  it 
was  not  strange  that  the  precedent  was  cited,  when  fourteen  years  later 
the  interests  of  South  Carolina  were  so  seriously  affected  by  the  tariff 
of  1828,  and  when  for  four  years  no  relief  was  obtained  despite  Web- 
ster’s eloquent  tribute  to  South  Carolina  and  the  conscientiousness  of 
her  high-minded  citizens,  till  Clay’s  spirit  of  compromise  reknit  the 
bonds  of  Union.  Yet  again,  when  the  admission  of  Texas  led  to  the 
third  war,  that  with  Mexico  for  American  “comity,”  since  the  success- 
ful candidate  for  the  Presidency  in  i860,  was  from  1846  to  1848  a Rep- 
resentative in  Congress,  and  in  his  opposition  to  the  measures  which 
then  prevailed,  he  took  the  very  position  as  to  State-rights  which  the 
Gulf  States  were  taking,  it  was  not  strange  that  as  President,  with  over- 
ruling official  devotion  to  the  Union,  he  and  his  Cabinet  so  long  breasted 
opposition  in  order  to  harmonize  opposers. 

When  finally,  true  index  to  the  “ history  ” Americans  demand,  the 
fourth  war,  that  for  American  “ Union,”  came,  these  historic  facts  were 
made  more  demonstrative  than  ever  before  in  the  chronicles  of  nations. 
The  pages  of  Thucydides  and  of  later  Grecian  writers  were  scanned  ; and 
the  horrors  of  slave-insurrections  during  the  Peloponesian  war,  togeth- 
er with  the  fatal  result  of  State  disunion,  ending  in  an  Imperial  despot- 
ism to  this  day  maintained  over  the  most  cultured  nation  of  history, 
were  reviewed.  In  this  whole  history  failure  of  fidelity  to  the  “ sym- 
machia,’’  or  war-league,  and  the  penalty  of  violated  interstate  law,  fills 
alike  the  fifth  book  of  Herodotus  and  the  entire  volume  of  Thucydides  ; 
while  the  ringing  epithet,  “ paraspondos,”  untrue  to  compact,  alike 
echoed  from  the  lip  of  Demosthenes  and  the  page ‘of  Thucydides,  was 
a warning  voice  for  all  time  to  calm  seekers  of  compromise.  Yet  more, 
the  Roman  term  “foederati,”  federated,  recognized  from  Caesar’s  day 
by  Roman  writers  as  the  invincible  safeguard  of  the  leagued  mountain 


I 


tribes  of  the  Helvetii  in  the  valleys  of  the  Alps,  the  denunciation  by 
Cicero  of  “fcedi  frangi,”  or  compact-breakers,  in  the  Roman  Republic, 
the  provisions  of  the  civil  code  of  Justinian  as  to  “ foederatici,”  or  citi- 
zens of  tribes  “ federated,”  the  repeated  instances  when  from  local 
interests  Swiss  cantons  contemplated  separate  commercial  or  military 
alliances  with  neighboring  Austrian,  German,  or  French  powers,  for 
the  time  overshadowing,  and  the  union  of  all  the  other  cantons  to 
force  back  these  “ openers  of  the  gates  of  Thermopylae  ” into  fidelity  to 
their  compact, — these  historical  parallels  were  with  fresh  warning 
studied.  As  the  war  went  on,  while  the  negro-wards  of  New  York 
were  raided  and  the  people  maltreated,  during  the  entire  four  years 
not  a case  of  conflict  between  whites  and  blacks,  provoked  on  either 
side,  occurred  in  all  the  Southern  States  ; servants  separated  from  their 
masters  during  battles  and  brought  into  Washington  begged  to  be  re- 
stored ; the  colored  people  of  Petersburgh,  Va.,  had  their  home-guard 
to  protect  their  section  of  the  city ; and  the  servants  of  General  Lee 
at  Arlington,  whose  church-home  was  in  Washington,  in  their  public 
positions  as  porters  and  janitors  would  always  defend  the  integrity  and 
loyalty  of  their  master.  While  this  first  professed  cause  for  war, 
the  social  issue,  was  thus  settled  for  the  recognition  of  all  nations,  the 
political  question  at  issue  was  more  emphatically  demonstrated.  While 
the  President,  with  a plurality  in  his  Cabinet  of  like  antecedents,  appre- 
ciated the  conscientious  conviction  of  State  rather  than  National  al- 
legiance, the  distinction  between  the  old  doctrine  of  “ State-rights,” 
revived  during  the  past  year  and  made  triumphant  before  the  Supreme 
Court  in  States  whose  laws  prohibit  the  sale  of  intoxicants,  the  extreme 
of  “ State-disunion  ” was  made  apparent.  For,  while  the  extreme 
States  of  the  South  left  the  Union  immediately  after  the  result  of  the 
Presidential  election  in  the  autumn  of  i860,  for  six  months  the  older 
Southern  States  clung  to  the  Union,  hoping  for  the  avoidance  of  armed 
conflict ; till  compelled  to  side  either  for  or  against  their  section. 
Most  significant  of  all,  in  the  campaign  that  brought  the  conflict  to  a 
speedy  end,  it  was  the  claim  of  “ State-control  ” even  in  common  con- 
flict of  arms,  that,  as  in  Greece  permanently,  and  in  Switzerland  occa- 
sionally, brought  the  penalty  of  eternal  law;  which,  either  with  or  with- 
out compact,  is  inevitable. 

Yet  once  more;  when,  at  the  close  of  the  war,  one  alone  of  all  the 
leaders,  the  President  of  the  Confederacy,  was  held  for  trial  during  two 
years,  and  the  Chief-Justice  who  was  to  preside  delayed  the  suit  till 
the  great  voice  of  the  people,  always  to  be  trusted,  as  Houston,  the 
tower  of  Southern  defense  of  the  Union  repeatedly  declared,  could  be 
heard,  this  fact,  known  to  his  intimates,  ruled  the  delay.  That  Chief- 
Justice,  as  Senator  and  Governor  of  one  of  the  new  States  of  the  North, 
through  all  the  discussions  that  formed  parties  for  ten  years  preceding 
the  war,  had  maintained  this  position  : that  only  the  “ original  thirteen 
States  ” were  bound  by  the  provision  of  the  Constitution  pledging  the 
States  to  restore  fugitives  ; a position,  of  course,  which  would  have  been 
cited  on  the  trial,  as  justifying  the  new  States  of  the  South,  to  one  of 
which  the  prisoner  on  trial  belonged,  in  their  claim  of  exemption  from 
allegiance  to  other  provisions  of  the  Constitution.  The  application  of 
this  statement  of  facts  to  a history  of  the  United  States  for  American 
schools  is  palpable  and  manifest.  The  records  in  the  archives  of  State 
and  National  Governments,  as  in  the  Hebrew  “Chronicles”  of  the 
kings  of  Israel,  may,  and  must,  be  made  select  for  the  youth  of  a coun- 
try and  for  the  instruction  of  men  and  nations  in  all  future  ages.  The 
superficial  and  prejudiced  student  may  seek  for  and  find  what  to  him 
seem  contradictions  ; while  a Grotius,  the  founder  of  the  modern  science 
of  international  law,  and  Greenleaf,  whose  Laws  of  Evidence  rule 
American  courts,  find  the  two  classes  of  records  just  the  selection  to 


12 


be  expected,  and  perfectly  harmonious;  indeed,  complementary  when 
collated.  Clarendon’s  “ History  of  the  Rebellion  ” of  Cromwell,  may,  of 
course,  be  sought  by  comprehensive  students  ; but  no  College  or  Uni- 
versity of  the  United  Kingdom  of  Great  Britain  would  dream  of  mak- 
ing it  a text-book.  So,  volumes  of  the  day  entitled  “ The  Rebellion,” 
written  for  American  readers,  may  find  their  place  in  library  alcoves ; 
but  Guizot’s  harmony  for  French  youth  is  the  demand  now  for  Ameri- 
can schools. 

The  question  of  a system  of  “Philosophy”  which  is  to  rule  in  American 
colleges,  is  yet  more  vital,  as  Socrates  and  Aristotle  recognized  in  the 
Athenian,  and  Cato  and  Cicero  in  the  Roman  Republic ; and  this  was 
so  demonstrated  for  all  the  world  in  the  French  Revolution  that 
Guizot’s  whole  energies,  and  that  during  his  whole  life,  were  bent  to  it. 
Aristotle’s  definition  : “ he  philosophia  esti  he  episteme  ton  epistemon, 
kai  he  techne  ton  technon  ” — “ philosophy  is  the  science  of  sciences 
and  the  art  of  arts,”  accepted  by  all  the  profound  scientists  and  jurists 
like  Cuvier  and  Agassiz,  like  Montesquieu  and  Guizot,  who  have  mas- 
tered his  connected  reasoning,  presents  this  ruling  principle.  All  the 
relations  of  man  to  things  and  beings  are  ruled  by  correlated  forces ; 
and  no  man  is  philosophic,  as  Socrates  at  seventy,  in  his  last  discourse, 
so  earnestly  argued,  unless  he  goes  back  to  the  “ First  Cause.”  The 
Brahminic  logic  recognized  that  there  must  be  in  every  event,  material 
or  spiritual,  five  conspiring  causes.  The  vase  never  would  have  existed 
unless  there  were : first,  the  material  cause,  the  clay ; second,  the 
formal  cause,  the  vase-shape  ; third,  the  instrumental  cause,  the  whirl- 
ing force  that  gives  the  rounded  form  ; fourth,  the  efficient  cause,  the 
potter’s  mind  ; and  fifth,  the  final  cause,  or  the  design  or  end  for  which 
the  potter  gave  the  special  shape.  So  Socrates  and  Aristotle  argued, 
not  only  as  to  the  vast,  rounded  universe,  but  also  as  to  the  forms  of 
the  rounding  flower  and  fruit,  the  root  and  tree  trunk.  Socrates,  in 
substance,  said,  so  tenderly  that  his  persuasive  earnestness,  Cicero  said, 
melted  him  in  the  mere  reading  to  tears : “ Cebes,  when  I was  young  I 
bent  all  my  energies  to  observe  how  forces,  back  of  each  other  in  end- 
less succession,  arose  ; but  I found  no  rest  till  one  day  I took  up  a book 
of  Anaxagoras,  who  said  that  ‘ Nous,’  Mind,  was  the  ‘ First  Cause.’  ” 
From  that  hour,  he  says,  he  gave  up  sculpture  and  thoughts  of  property 
and  reputation,  and  lived  and  argued  for  one  end  ; to  bring  the  men, 
especially  the  youth  of  Athens,  to  believe  that  all  their  relations,  social, 
civil,  political,  and  religious,  were  ruled  by  Divine  power,  wisdom,  and 
goodness,  and  that  Divine  law  should  be  human  law.  It  is  significant, 
that  while  recent  danger  has  threatened,  six  men  of  Cambridge  have 
successively  united  to  maintain  the  authority  not  only  of  Natural  Re- 
ligion argued  demonstratively  by  Grecian  and  Roman  teachers  and 
statesmen,  but  also  to  maintain  the  Divine  authority  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testaments,  namely,  Greenleaf,  in  jurisprudence;  Agassiz,  in  nat- 
ural history;  Peabody,  in  divinity;  Abbott,  in  New  Testament  Greek; 
Bowen,  in  Philosophy ; and  last,  Cooke,  in  mineralogy  and  chemistry, 
his  recent  volume  demonstrating  its  title,  “ The  Credentials  of  Science 
the  Warrant  of  Faith.”  The  French  Revolution  ignored  this  primary 
truth,  without  which  chaos  would  rule  in  the  universe,  and  does  rule  in 
society.  Burke,  who  in  his  first  defense  of  the  Americans  in  the  Brit- 
ish Parliament,  cited  a London  bookseller,  who  stated  that  he  sold 
more  copies  of  Blackstone’s  Commentaries  on  the  “ Common  Law,” 
and,  with  them,  “more  books  of  devotion,”  than  in  all  the  British  do- 
minions besides — Burke  cited,  in  1790,  three  years  before  its  fulfillment, 
the  opposite  rule  in  France  as  the  sure  precursor  of  ruin.  This  ruled 
profound  statesmen  from  Washington,  not  excepting  Jefferson  and 
Franklin,  scores  might  be  named,  with  whom  the  Bible  was  their  first, 
chief,  fundamental  text-book;  the  second  Adams  being  but  one  ex- 


13 


ample,  whose  Bible  was  always  found  open  on  his  table  by  visitors  as 
he  talked.  Just  so  far  as  the  spirit  of  the  French  Revolution,  the  spirit 
of  superficial,  destructive  criticism,  ignoring  the  ever-preserved  text, 
the  perfect  harmony,  the  entire  conformity  of  all  its  statements  to  the 
law  seen  to  rule  nature  and  man  in  all  happy  relations — just  so  far  as 
Professors  in  any  department  treat  with  superficial  and  sceptical  doubt 
what  men  like  Grotius,  Montesquieu,  Guizot,  and  Greenleaf,  have 
demonstrated  by  the  most  rigid  scrutiny  and  most  perfect  logic  to  be 
not  only  true,  but  “the  truth  of  all  truth,"  the  science  of  sciences,  the 
art  of  arts, — so  long  philosophy  will  not  reign,  because  it  will  cease  to  be 
taught  in  our  colleges. 

The  harmonious  agreement  in  fundamental  philosophical  thought  of 
six  veteran  leaders  in  American  education  at  the  earliest  centre  of 
thorough  culture  in  the  New  World,  attests  the  one  “eternal  law”  to 
which  the  freest,  widest  range  of  investigation  always  brings  sincere 
and  mature  minds.  As  Professor  in  the  Law  Department  of  Harvard 
University  from  1833,  devoting  his  riper  years,  from  1842  to  1853,  to 
the  elaboration  of  the  “ Laws  of  Evidence,”  which  now  rule  with  the 
English  Sharkey  in  all  American  courts,  the  demand  recognized  especi- 
ally among  law  students,  led  Greenleaf  to  lay  aside  in  its  midst  his  great 
work,  that  he  might  prepare  his  volume  entitled,  “The  Testimony  of 
the  Evangelists,  Examined  by  the  Rules  of  Evidence  Administered  in 
Courts  of  Justice.”  Quoting  in  its  dedication,  “ To  the  Members  of  the 
LegalProfession,”  the  words  of  Cicero:  “ Aut  undique  religionem  tolle, 
aut  usquequaque  conserva,”  either  banish  religion  entirely,  or  guard  it  in 
every  particular,  he  urged  : that,  since  the  members  of  the  legal  pro- 
fession are  looked  to  and  are  held  responsible  as  the  guardians  of  law, 
they  must  be  conservators  in  public  opinion  of  the  religious  convictions 
on  which  the  authority  of  law  ever  rests ; and  hence,  they  should  be 
both  impartial  in  their  investigation,  and  be  guided  by  the  “ laws  of 
evidence,”  in  analyzing  the  truths  of  the  Christian  religion  everywhere 
recognized,  and  in  judging  of  the  authority  of  the  documents  on  which 
its  faith  rests.  Peabody,  during  a long  life,  one  of  the  most  impartial 
and  reverent  instructors  in  the  School  of  Divinity,  not  only  presents 
the  logical  connection  of  truth  in  theological  science,  but  also  traces 
the  perfect  conformity  of  the  Christian  faith  and  the  teaching  of  the 
Old  and  New  Testaments  to  the  principles  of  “Natural  Religion  ” phi- 
losophically maintained  by  statesmen  and  sages  ignorant  of  the  New 
Testament  writings.  Most  of  all,  unfolding  the  hidden  spring  of  re- 
ligious scepticism,  he  meets  especially  the  prevailing  objection  that  the 
human  mind  cannot  “comprehend  ” the  infinite,  and  hence  cannot  be 
ruled  by  it.  He  employs  the  demonstrative  induction  that  rules  the 
mathematician.  The  mind  even  of  the  child  “apprehends,”  practi- 
cally, what  it  cannot  “comprehend”  theoretically;  for  every  mind 
recognizes  that  space  must  be  without  limit,  since,  if  with  lightning 
speed  for  ages,  the  same  line  were  pursued,  no  limit  of  space  could  be 
reached,  for  any  supposed  limit  would  itself  occupy  space.  Since,  then, 
everywhere  limitless  power,  wisdom,  skill,  goodness,  and  love  are  mani- 
fest just  so  long  as  the  law  of  man’s  relations  is  sought,  guarded,  and 
preferred,  and  since  penalty  is  but  the  necessity  from  violation  of  law,  all 
the  connected  truths  of  natural  religion,  culminating  in  the  Christian 
faith,  must,  by  sincere  minds,  be  accepted,  reverenced,  and  copied  in 
man’s  life.  Agassiz,  the  pupil  of  Cuvier,  the  master  in  logic  in  meet- 
ing St.  Hilaire  in  the  French  Academy  in  1832, — Agassiz,  from  his  first 
Lectures  before  the  Smithsonian  Institution  in  Washington,  in  1846,  to 
his  last  Course  in  Cambridge,  just  before  his  death  in  1873,  maintained 
with  the  fervor  of  intense  conviction,  that  science  must  admit  and 
adore  the  First  Cause  at  every  step  of  development  in  organic  life,  plant 
and  animal;  his  expression,  “God’s  Plan,”  embodying  “ that  ultimate 


* 


14 


philosophy.”  Bowen,  with  Philosophy  as  his  department  of  exhaustive 
study  for  life,  roused  to  the  tendencies  which  were  threatening  the 
atheistic  denial  of  all  authority  which  wrecked  France  despite  her  Uni- 
versity and  her  Academy,  unrivalled  in  brilliance  of  genius, — Bowen 
raised  the  voice  of  warning  against  the  superficial  spirit  that  ruled  the 
denial  of  Divine  law  and  of  inspired  Revelation  of  that  law.  Abbott, 
in  his  quiet,  profound,  impartial,  and  conscientious  cloister,  roused  to 
remonstrate  at  the  utter  undermining  of  the  very  foundation  of  faith  in 
the  Old  and  New  Testament  Scriptures  by  unfounded  reliance  on  a few 
imperfect  manuscripts,  known  to  have  been  laid  aside  as  such  that  their 
parchment  might  some  day  be  used  for  other  purposes,  and  brought  to 
European  libraries  only  as  museum-relics, — Abbott  wore  out  his  life,  so 
like  to  that  of  the  writer  he  defended,  in  demonstrating  by  exhaustive 
historic  research  the  integrity  and  Divine  authority  of  the  writings  of 
the  “disciple  whom  Jesus  loved.”  Finally  Cooke,  in  his  ten  Lectures, 
entitled  “ The  Credentials  of  Science  the  Warrant  of  Faith,”  reviews 
first  the  truths  of  Natural  Religion,  citing  Galen,  the  ancient  master  in 
human  anatomy  and  hygiene  among  the  Romans,  as  “ scarcely  equalled 
in  modern  times  next  he  analyzes  the  demonstrative  process  of  “ in- 
duction ”;  next  he  illustrates  its  method  in  Newton  ; and  then,  traces  how 
by  “ deduction,”  the  results  of  induction  are  made  by  their  application, 
as  in  the  mathematics  and  in  chemical  analysis,  to  advance  human 
progress  and  happiness.  Reaching  thus  the  “ Laws  of  Nature  ” as  the 
“ laws  of  God,”  he  defends,  alike,  the  logic  of  Agassiz,  as  applied  to  the 
origin  of  material  organisms,  and  the  demonstrative  truth  of  the  Chris- 
tian revelation  sustained  by  “ miracles,”  which  are  but  interpositions  in 
the  line  of  Divine  creations,  which  must  be  admitted  in  the  origin  of 
all  successive  new  flora  and  fauna  ; while,  too,  they  are  at  once  the 
“ credentials  of  science  ” and  the  needed  “ warrant  of  faith.” 

If  ever,  in  the  world’s  history,  true  science  was  made  to  lead  to  uni- 
fied and  harmonized  philosophy,  it  has  been  realized  in  these  six  men 
of  Cambridge,  raised  up,  as  Henry  argued  leaders  in  all  ages  are  called 
forth,  for  the  defense  of  material  and  spiritual  law ; forced  upon  scien- 
tists, statesmen,  and  teachers  whenever  the  yearning  wants  of  the 
people  call  forth  sincere  devotion  to  truth,  prompted  by  the  grace  that 
truth  always  begets.  Guizot  notes  in  old  age,  when  daughters  and 
granddaughters  were  the  chief  companions  of  his  necessarily  secluded 
life  in  the  house,  how  parents  flocked  to  consult  him  on  the  education  of 
daughters  as  well  as  sons.  Jefferson’s  responsibility  as  the  father  of  a 
cultured  daughter,  exposed  amid  the  social  attractions  of  the  University 
he  had  founded,  gave  him  broader  thoughts;  as  it  gave  to  Socrates  and 
Cicero,  to  Newton  and  Guizot,  a philosophy  transcending  the  low 
range  of  mere  physical  science.  The  present  age  in  Europe  is  taking 
cast,  in  part  at  least,  from  this  fact : That  the  sovereign  of  Great 
Britain,  adored  by  her  people  from  the  day  of  her  accession  in  1837  as 
a girl  of  eighteen  for  her  virtue  and  intelligence,  called  College  Pro- 
fessors to  a new  responsibility  by  offering  to  young  women  who  aspired 
to  it,  the  truest  title  to  nobility,  a Collegiate  degree.  That  influence 
spread  through  her  daughter,  the  Empress  of  Germany,  and  through 
the  sister  of  her  successor’s  wife,  the  Czarina  of  Russia,  to  all  Europe. 
If  in  our  country  fathers  may  be  too  heedless  as  to  the  philosophy  that 
rules  in  colleges  where  the  thought  and  character  of  their  sons  is  re- 
ceiving bent,  no  mother  will  be  thoughtless  as  to  the  philosophy  in- 
stilled into  the  developing  mind  and  made  to  rule  the  opening  life  of 
her  daughters. 

It  is  to  the  credit  of  the  University  of  the  State  of  New  York,  as  a 
sharer  of  its  counsels  for  twenty  years,  accustomed  to  meet  like  associ- 
ations in  other  States  and  countries,  can  intelligently  declare — that,  as 
the  first  true  American  Bureau  of  Public  Instruction,  succeeded  by  the 


i5 


National  Bureau,  and  now  by  State  Bureaus  as  far  as  Texas,  whose  vol- 
umes are  yearly  received  and  studied, — from  its  origin  in  its  English 
youth  and  in  its  American  growing  prime,  it  has  in  its  Chancellors  and 
Regents  shared  the  wisdom  and  grace,  the  science  and  the  art  of 
Guizot.  As  philosophy  is  complete  only  in  united  and  universal  induc- 
tion from  observation  and  in  skillful  deduction  from  newly  applied  arts, 
as  the  present  year’s  progress  indicates,  attainment  yet  higher  is  its 
aim.  If,  in  the  common  schools,  in  academies,  in  colleges,  and  in  its 
mission  as  a University  the  three  aims  of  Guizot  are  attained — if  at  the 
great  centres  the  ever  multiplying  special  schools  do  not  foster  frag- 
mentary study, — if  the  sons  of  the  wealthy,  who  have  no  mission  in  life, 
do  not  so  outnumber  the  aspiring  that  both  teachers  and  pupils  are 
checked  and  thwarted  in  their  mission,  so  that  true  culture  and  its  as- 
pirants shall  seek  new  and  more  retired  resorts, — if  the  proposed  exten- 
sion, which  brings  home  to  true  aspirants  guides  to  self-culture,  prove 
true  to  its  intent — if  degrees  are  faithfully  conformed  to  Charter- 
pledges  instead  of  being  lavished  on  favorites  or  on  persistent  appli- 
cants— if,  above  all,  a reverence  akin  to  that  of  Grecian  and  Roman, 
not  to  say  of  French,  English,  and  American  fathers  of  their  country, 
rules,  the  present  Chancellor  may  realize  the  mission  of  Guizot. 

G.  W.  SAMSON. 

Rutgers  Female  College, 

New  York,  July  4,  1891. 


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